Jude Collins

Monday, 19 March 2012

Those Ontario riots: I feel so ashamed - don't you?

Oh dear. You have disgraced yourselves again, as W B Yeats told the Abbey audience at that Synge play (or was it the O'Casey one?) Like you, I'm horrified and ashamed at the scenes of rioting coming from London, Ontario. A lot of people got cuts and minor injuries, it seems, and thousands of dollars-worth of property was damaged. It appears to have been perpetrated by students from a nearby college or colleges, which makes me feel relieved that when I was a student, I never let alcohol pass my lips ("Lips that touch liquor will never touch mine", I used to explain to beautiful girls in bars), never got into fights of any kind, acted in a responsible way, and never woke up next morning saying to myself "Holy Mother of God, part of my skull is missing and I'm going to throw up, I know I am". But out of adversity comes opportunity: with our experience of those awful Holylands disturbances, we're now in a position to ship out the Vice-Chancellors of UU and Queen's to Ontario, where they can explain to the authorities there how they've managed to deal with those disgustingly young people - sorry, I mean disgusting young people in the Holylands who spoilt things for everyone else by drinking in public and smashing things and giving people cuts, despite what sober responsible grown-ups told them. I mean, as that grave-faced man in the BBC clip from Ontario said, enough is enough.

By the way - I assume, like me, you never got pissed or bolshie when you were young? Right. I thought not.

5 comments:

JudeWhat is your point ? Should the 'celebrations' in the holyland in recent years be laughed off. Just a bit of fun. To hell with those few non students still left there.I certainly had a few drinks when I lived there many moons ago. I don't remember bringing my 200 mates out onto the street to party all night.I presume you would be content for this to happen in your own back yard?

Anon 11:43I am glad it was quieter this year. There is plenty of anti social behaviour around the 12th alright. I hope it is well policed. No doubt we can look forward to a light-hearted piece from Jude playing it down.